Notebook ODMs are expected to see their shipments in the fourth quarter to drop from the third and the volumes may continue to decline in 2016, making mobile devices especially wearable products to become the main growth driver of ODMs, according to some market watchers.

Most ODMs are also conservative about their fourth-quarter performances and expect their shipments to drop a single-digit percentage sequentially.

Quanta vice chairman CC Leung recently said that the shipment drop in the fourth quarter is mainly because the global economy is recovering rather slowly, while China, which used to be the major growth contributor, is also seeing its GDP weakening. Both have significantly stagnate consumers' demand.

Compal president Ray Chen also shares a similar view to Leung and expects a single-digit percentage drop in the fourth quarter.

Quanta and Compal together have already acquired over 50% of the overall notebook orders for 2016, but both are still pessimistic about overall shipments in 2016. In 2016, the market watchers expect the market will gradually lean toward both the entry-level and high-end segments. More inexpensive Windows-based notebooks and Chromebooks are expected to be introduced, while vendors will also focus more on high-end products such as gaming notebooks.

Meanwhile, wearable device shipments are also expected to grow dramatically. Quanta, the maker of the Apple Watch, is expected to see related orders surging in 2016 and the ODM reportedly has also received orders for Apple's second-generation Apple Watch for the second quarter of 2016.

Inventec is also expected to benefit from growing wearable device shipments. Inventec's subsidiary Inventec Appliance shipped 50-60 million mobile devices in 2015 and close to 80% of the volume were smartphones.